The present invention relates generally to injection molding, and more particularly, to an injection screw and barrel providing improved control of small shots of plastic during injection molding.
The injection molding process employs an injector that forces a volume of thermoplastic material (a “shot”) under pressure into a mold cavity. A common injector design provides an outer barrel holding an injection screw. Pellets of thermoplastic resin from a hopper fall enter the barrel at a feed zone and they are received by threads (“flights”) on the injection screw. The injection screw rotates within the barrel to shear, blend, and advances the molten plastic toward the front of the barrel near a nozzle that communicates with the mold cavity.
As molten plastic is advanced toward the front of the barrel, the injection screw retracts, allowing molten plastic to fill a metering zone just behind the nozzle. At the time of the injection, the injection screw is moved like a piston to push the plastic from the metering zone into the nozzle and ultimately into the mold.
In order to obtain consistent and high quality molded parts, the movement of the screw within the barrel must be accurately controlled. This is difficult for small shot sizes where very little screw movement occurs. For this reason for small shots of plastic, it is desirable to reduce the diameter of the bore of the injector barrel and the diameter of the injection screw so as to provide the largest possible amount of screw travel for the small shot volume.
Small injection screws are difficult to manufacture and there are practical limits on injection screw diameter resulting from the need for thread depth and sufficient root diameter to withstand the torque and compression placed on the injection screw.